Disaster task force drill headed through county on Wednesday

Howard Roden

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, June 21, 2010

Drivers who encounter a couple of convoys making their way through Montgomery County Wednesday afternoon shouldn’t be alarmed. The vehicles and equipment are part of a live-action hurricane drill designed to test the Texas Department of Emergency Management’s Rapid Response Task Force.

The two convoys - containing about 50 vehicles each - are to depart from Waco Wednesday morning with Lone Star College-Kingwood as their destination. The Humble campus will serve as the base camp for simulated exercises intended to test emergency mobilization, response and preparedness in the event of a real natural or manmade disaster.

TDEM chose LSC-Kingwood because of the campus’ proximity to the coastal areas and major thoroughfares, as well as its size for staging of resources needed for a response and its reduced cost to the state, according to LSC-Kingwood.

“This partnership with TDEM benefits the Lone Star College System as a whole because we are taking necessary steps to ensure that we and the community are prepared for almost anything - from a hurricane to a terrorist attack,” Dr. Denise Walker, LSCS chief of emergency management, said in a prepared statement.

The Rapid Response Task Force in Waco is one of four RRTFs staged throughout the state, with the others in Austin, Dallas and San Antonio. The Austin and Dallas units already staged their drills, said DPS Sr. Cpl. Charlie Morgan, with San Antonio scheduled to conduct its exercise in mid-July.

Morgan said DPS is spreading the word about the drill in advance to minimize confusion when the convoys hit the highway Wednesday morning.

“The personnel and vehicles involved will respond just like an actual emergency,” he said. “Response vehicles will leave Waco with their emergency lights activated.”

Morgan said advance notice wasn’t given prior to the Austin exercise.

“They were getting a ton of phone calls with people asking, ‘What blew up and where?’” he said.

Trooper Erik Burse, safety education officer for the DPS’ Conroe area, said the convoys will travel east from Waco on Texas 164 to I-45 in Buffalo. The vehicles will travel south to Texas 242, before heading east to U.S. 59 and south to the LSC-Kingwood campus.

The first convoy is scheduled to reach the Montgomery County area by 1:30 p.m., Burse said.

He stressed that the convoys will be traveling “much slower” than the posted speed limits on I-45 and Texas 242.

“They’ll be transporting all the equipment they need to handle in a disaster,” Burse said. “We don’t think there will be much of a problem getting them through safely, although we’re asking motorists to use caution if they encounter these vehicles.

“We just don’t want to cause a panic. We want the public to be aware that this is a live drill and not a real disaster.”